On the 10th and 11th May 2019, the Nissan Institute will be host to an international conference to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Meiji Restoration and mark the imperial transition. Over the two days, twenty academic speakers will gather at the Nissan Institute and St Antony’s College to present ground-breaking work on the “Opening of Japan” in the middle of the nineteenth century, re-examining its causes, its forgotten aspects, and its legacy today.